leviathan with ten adhesive wheels for heavy
land; and a machine for getting fresh water,
aerated, out of salt; and there is some stone
pasteboard for roofings; and a shoemaker's
table and stand, designed by a clever man who
has made it his special study how to help and
how to cure the shoemaker's sunken chest and
withered limbs; and there is a plan for a
reversible window that can be cleaned in the
inside, and so no more lives lost of giddy girls
falling onto area spikes; and everywhere
furious things doing nothing, and a mighty
bustle over phantom labour.

Then we turned to look at the carriages,
which are pleasanter to me than the machinery.
First, there was the Prussian state coach, with
its magnificent thick plate-glass windows, the
golden eagle for its handle, and all as fine as
carving and gilding and lake and maroon and
the best japan varnish could make it, but
gingerbready too, and not much better, if grander,
than our own Lord Mayor's respected pumpkin;
but yet wonderfully fine, and calculated to
produce an immense effect on the good Berliners.
And there was a carriage for all four seasons,
open in summer, hooded in autumn, able to be
opened in spring, but finally sealed and shut
for winter. Indeed, it seems to be the great
ambition of the coach-builders of the present
day to make their vehicles capable of everything:
becoming landaus, broughams, dog-carts,
waggonettes, whatever the owner pleases, and the
coachman has brains to work. Why, there is
one reversible waggonette that can be made
into five different carriages; and one that can
be transformed into close or open, by means of
cords, and weights, and pulleys at the
coachhouse ceiling, which gives me an oppressive
feeling somehow. And there were spidery
things, all legs, and lines, and big wheels like
huge skeletons; and velocipedes; and
perambulators, silver-mounted; and coal vans, not yet
begrimed, bnt bright with varnish and gold
lettering; and heavy carriages as big as Goliath's
state coach; and close beside them little dainty
things not larger than a lady's bonnet; and a
one-horse van; and some country carts very
blue and very red; and all this department
smelling strongly of varnish, and rich in quilted
satin and radiant colours.

After that refreshing little episode of the
carriages we dived among the machinery again.
And here let me give a specimen of one of my
difficulties. I know that I am ignorant, but
who, not a practical weaver or mechanic—and
you are not all practical weavers or mechanics
—can tell me the meaning of tappet, and temple,
and dobby, and an underpick loom, and a
heald-knitting machine, and slubbing, and spools?
And is not a throstle a thrush? And what is
a twiner's skewer, and what are spindle cop braids,
and throstle top cleaners, and a mule top, and a
derrick crane? And has a slotting machine
anything to do with dogs and deer, or the noble art
of Venerie in any shape? I put these questions,
humbly confessing my exceeding ignorance; but
who knows much more than myself?

Then I looked at the machine for making braid
and whips—a thing like the anatomised hammers
of a piano, all wheels, which does everything
in its way; and at a big monster for planing
iron, as if it were cheese, or wood; and at
another for drilling and punching iron, going
through any number of inches as easily as
through so much paper; and at a magnetic
printing press; and a type-composing machine,
where the compositor arranges the letters by
playing on some organ, or pianoforte-looking
keys—a very pleasant and ingenions contrivance,
but I am not able to speak of its utility; nor
can I describe it, save that it looks like a pianoforte
with a network of brass channels at the back,
which all meet in a long tube or trough, and that
the compositor plays on the piano keys and the
type falls down the channels and arranges itself,
I can't tell how. Then a lady exhibits a miniature
printing press, with cases of type; and
gives lessons to ladies in presswork, besides
taking orders; and there is an electrograph
machine for engraving the copper cylinders used
in calico printing, by means of a diamond point
and a voltaic battery—another of the inexplicable
mysteries to me, full of indefinite danger; and
there are a boot and shoemaking machine; and
heaps of sewing machines which do everything
in the way of needlework possible to needles
and threads. They make dresses and buttonholes,
they stitch, hem, sew, embroider, put on
flounces, and pucker frills; they do all but cut
out, and perhaps they will do that soon, withont
patterns. And, greatest boon of all, there is a
stocking-darning machine! What do you say
to that, patient little girl, you who have all the
family stockings to darn every Saturday night
—what do you say to a machine that just knits
up the holes as quickly as you can thread the
needles? But the household machines are
becoming numerous, and infinitely intelligent. Is
then my engineering friend a true prophet, and
is the time at hand when we shall have done
with human labour of the mindless school, in
favour of steam and iron for servants, and
man's wit for the directing power? There
is a machine for sweeping carpets, which will
give poor Betty an extra half hour of leisure;
and there is a machine for kneading bread;
there are dozens of machines for washing,
drying, and mangling, with no greater trouble
than the turning of a handle,—among them a
"brush and dash" washing machine, with a
considerable dash I should say; there are a
printing press for marking house linen, cost
twenty-five shillings, which is rather a large
per-centage to pay for the saving of a little
trouble; a " gem" knife-cleaner; and a
boot-cleaning machine, for two brushes at once, and
without putting in the hand; a self-basting
roasting apparatus; and a machine that kneads
dough, pots meat, grinds suet, chops and stones
raisins, beats eggs, mixes biscuits and cakes and
puddings—in short, does all that fork and
pestle and whisk are used to do in barbarous
households. Surely a priceless blessing in the
epochs sacred to mince-pies and Christmas